No More Happy Sunshine
by JacksBoonie
Summary: What if Mark had been injured the night of the riot at Maureen's protest?


AN: Good Day, Kats and Kittens. This is my first delve into the RENT archive, so please be gentle. I've only seen it once (and not even the whole thing, really), but I thought it was damn good and decided I'd try my luck. So, without further ado, please enjoy!

Disclaimer: I do not own the musical/play/movie _RENT_. I do not own the characters of the musical/play/movie _RENT_. _  
_

_No More Happy Sunshine:_

Mark stumbled through the door of the restaurant with a sense of relief, wincing as he jostled his injuries. Several surprised pairs of eyes settled on his battered form as he leaned back against a nearby wall, his only focus on keeping himself upright. There were exclamations of his name, gasps, sounds of sympathy as fingers and hands began to poke and prod and push.

He whimpered, starting to slide toward the ground to escape the barrage, but the grips on him only tightened, pulling him up and supporting him, moving him to a chair. He closed his eyes, leaning his head back and ignoring the blur of questions around him. He couldn't see their faces, but just the closeness of their body heat was making him claustrophobic. And then someone's voice cut in above the others, silencing the rest -- the warm, welcome voice of his best friend.

"Hey, Mark?" Roger's voice was timid, and hesitant fingers curled lightly around his upper arms. Mark retracted for only a moment before relaxing into the touch and lifting his head slightly to stare into concerned green eyes.

Roger couldn't help but wince as those pool-blue orbs centered in on him. Mark was a mess. Dried blood lay in flaky rivers on his face, running from his nostrils, over his lips, and disappearing beneath his chin. His glasses were askew, one of the lenses cracked, and his left eye was swollen and already turning a deep purple. Crimson liquid coated his teeth and his tongue, splattering his shirt and pants with every cough.

The musician couldn't see his friend's right wrist very well because Mark kept it cuddled close to his chest and shielded by his other hand, but judging by the extremely unnatural angle at which it was bent, he assumed it was broken.

"R-Roger," Mark rasped, pushing himself off of the chair with what little strength he could muster and curling himself as tightly against his friend as he could. Roger flailed for a second on his haunches, finally losing his balance and tumbling back with an armful of the trembling film-maker.

"Whoa, buddy," he said quietly, wrapping his arms around the other man as he situated himself on the floor. "Shh, it's okay. You're all right." Mark began to sob, clutching Roger's shoulder with his good hand and fisting the fabric as his tears soaked into the thin, cotton T-Shirt. Roger let him cry for a while, ignoring the worried faces around him and rocking the young man back and forth until a thought came to mind.

"We need to get him to a hospital," he explained to their surrounding friends. "His wrist is broken-" A strange wheezing was coming from the man in his arms "-and he's breathing funny. Go get a cab."

"Screw that! Call him a fucking ambulance!" Maureen screeched, heading for the payphone.

"No!" Mark yelled, ceasing her actions and receiving a glare. "He doesn't need an ambulance. We can get him there just fine in a cab. It's only a few blocks from here." He hooked his arm under Mark's knees and carefully stood to his feet, the smaller man cradled in his arms. He stared around at the skeptical looks he was receiving, Maureen starting back toward the payphone and lifting the receiver.

"Hey!" He shouted, and her finger paused just over the _9_ button. "You wanna pay thirty bucks for a cab or three-hundred for a fucking ambulance? Because that's how much it's going to cost us if you dial that damn number." And that's what it came down to, really: money. Not that Roger would ever think of the cost before Mark's well-being. Perhaps if they had been further from the hospital or if Mark had been in worse shape . . . but they were barely three blocks from their desired destination, and Mark looked like he could make it another ten minutes. Besides, the bespectacled man would feel bad enough with a hospital bill hanging over his head. Adding unnecessary expenses to that would only make it worse. With annoyance, Roger ground his teeth and glared at the people around him.

"Listen," he reasoned more calmly, shifting Mark slightly and wincing as the man groaned in pain, "by the time they thing gets here, we could already _be_ at the hospital, so someone just go call a God damn cab!" Angel and Collins were out the door before he even finished his sentence. Glancing down, he found Mark still shaking rather violently and his eyes shut tightly, tears still making their way down the tracks on his reddened cheeks.

"It's gonna be okay, Marky," he whispered, resting his cheek against his friend's mussed hair. "You're gonna be just fine."

0 o 0 o 0

Three weeks later, Mark died in Roger's arms in a cold, sterile hospital bed.

A broken rib had punctured the young film-maker's lung, and the fluids that had leaked into the organ, coupled with the freezing weather the night of the riot, had caused a severe case of pneumonia. Infection had set in and refused to release the young man, worsening with every passing day until his body could no longer fight it.

Roger held him for a long time before finally leaving to tell the others sitting in the waiting room what had happened.

The funeral was small, quiet. Mark would have wanted it that way. Roger shed no tears like the rest of his friends. He couldn't. He had given so many to the young man over the last few weeks. He was spent. His eyes were dry, his body empty and numb. It was a tragedy that the darkness hadn't swallowed his heart as well. Every day that it continued to beat, he cursed his disease-ridden body for not giving out.

He stopped taking the AZT. That had been Mark's job: reminding him to take it. And without Mark, there was no reason to take it, no reason to continue pushing on while the inevitable hung in the very-near future.

0 o 0 o 0

Shortly after Angel's funeral, Maureen came to visit him. The loft was dark -- not because there wasn't any power but because Roger could no longer stand the light. In the dark, he could pretend that it wasn't empty, that Mark's room hadn't been in the exact same condition for more than a month. And when Maureen flipped them on to find Roger wallowing on the couch, it was all the strength he had to keep from glancing towards his former friend's room. The door was still cracked, he knew. Mark had rarely ever closed it all the way, always finding it easier to push open then run into when he was in one of his distracted states.

Maureen smiled sadly at him, slowly circling the coffee table and gently seating herself beside him. She had something clutched against her abdomen, her fingers curled around it so tightly that her knuckles were a sickly white -- much like the pallor of Roger's skin.

"Joanne and I, we found it when we were disassembling the stage," she said softly, pushing the object into his lap and rubbing her stiff fingers. Roger stared at it, his mind taking a moment to register the thing as Mark's camera. Slowly, a bony hand snaked out from beneath the gnarled blanket covering his shivering form. His fingertips grazed the cold metal, whispering over the bent and cracked thing. It was dirty, dusty. He must have dropped it that night.

"It's busted," Maureen explained quietly, watching as the man's hand stilled its caress, as if she had intruded on an intimate moment, "but Joanne said the film still looks okay . . . Do you want me to-"

"No," Roger whispered, the word almost a croak. Maureen nodded and stood, kissing his forehead.

"Joanne and I will stop by tomorrow," she said. "We'll bring lunch, okay?"

He nodded absently, his eyes still glued to the camera in his lap. He vaguely registered the door closing, but once it settled in his mind, he stood, making his way towards Mark's projector in the corner. The young man had shown him how to feed the film into the machine once, and after much fumbling, he finally had it set up. He flicked the machine on, and it whirred to life. He huffed a bark of laughter as he realized he had put it in upside-down but did nothing to fix his mistake, merely sitting in one of the kitchen chairs and tugging his ratty blanket around him tighter.

The first images to appear were of one of his gigs from long ago -- back when April was still alive and things were still relatively normal. Roger remembered telling Mark not to waste his film on his band. He had plenty of footage of them already, but Mark had insisted, saying, "We can sell it for big bucks when you get _really_ famous." Roger wondered how many reels of film lay in Mark's room, forgotten and never to be seen. Maybe some of them would sell now that the young film-maker was gone -- like Picasso and his paintings.

The flimstrip went black for a moment before switching to Maureen's protest. Roger smiled and laughed at the memories, hearing himself and his friends laughing on screen as well. Mark's laugh was the most pronounced, and every so often he would softly comment, saying things like, "This is great!" and "She's so fucking crazy."

Finally, the fighting began, and Roger's smile slipped from his face. He saw he and his friends slip out of the screen, away from the cops and the angered citizens of Alphabet City, but the camera pushed forward, into the heart of the fight. And Roger's heart broke as he realized what was coming. Fists and angry, gnashing mouths filled the screen. Droplets of blood splattered the lens, but the filming continued, just barely discernable.

And then it happened.

An "oof!" sounded from Mark as he was knocked to the ground, the camera sliding from his hands and training on his fallen form, his frightened face, as an unknown person began to beat him. It wasn't even a cop. Just some strung-out junkie, who probably hadn't known his head from his ass.

"Please, wait," Mark pleaded, holding up his arms as a shield. "Don't! I'm not going to-" A boot connected with the young man's nose and upper lip, and blood began to spurt down his face. Roger winced and turned away for a moment, his eyes stinging with tears. A gurgling nose echoed from the film, and the musician turned back just in time to see Mark take a kick to the chest. A sickening crack sounded, and mark whimpered, crying out once more as the boot came down hard on his wrist. The boots left, then, and Mark, wheezing and spitting up blood, managed to push himself onto his hands and knees before the camera came to a blackened stop.

Roger sat for a long time. Minutes, hours, who knew? All that _was_ certain was that when the sun finally began its ascent into the sky, its rays peaked into a cold, lifeless room and shone on a still form with deadened green eyes.

And it weeped for the loss of another Alphabet City son.

AN: Questions? Comments? Vague disregard for any or all words written and established in the mind of one who has no sanity?

Like I said, "first delve," so go easy on me. I know it's depressing. I really hadn't meant for it to be. Oh well, I hope you liked it anyway. :) Later, Gators! I'll catch you all on the flip side.


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